December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

COS_sak
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

8-14-95. NYPaper [a mote for Futplex's panoptic biblio]: "Dissidents Use Computer Network to Rile Scientology." The Church of Scientology is battling a band of on-line dissidents who have used the Internet to mail out globally its secret scriptures. On Saturday, as a result of a copyright infringement lawsuit, US marshals seized the computer of a former church employee who had electronically posted a 13-page text that he said was available in court records. Helena K. Kobrin, a lawyer for the church, said: "There are people out there who somehow think the Internet has created a new medium where all the rules go away, and it's not true. Things happen faster on the Internet, and we're going to keep up." COS_sak (about 7K)

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CEL_tic
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

8-14-95. NYPaper: "Israelis and Others Feel the Sting of a Cellur Phone Bug." A software bug inside the Alpha digital phone of Motorola has demonstrated an area of vulnerability in the growing web of digital communications systems -- and prompted Motorola to issue a worldwide recall. Motorola wound up asking 150,000 Alpha users in six countries to return the phones to have the software changed. The Alpha adheres to an emerging standard for digital cellular telephones called time division multiple access, or T.D.M.A. The bug caused the phone to lock on to one channel and stay there indefinitely. "There are tremendous risks as soon as you put something in software," said Peter Neumann, a computer security specialist with SRI International. The cellular industry "has foisted a disastrously insecure technology on the public," he said. CEL_tic (about 7K)

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Re: An article for Wired magazine
by Bryce Wilcox 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > First of all, digital money can take various forms. Existence on a hard > drive is one of those forms. But, it is also possible to have digital money > on a card-based platform. Mondex in the UK currently has official government > units of account digitally represented for their Mondex card trial in > Swindon. They have also announced that in the future this card will hold up > to five "official" currencies. Furthermore, they make no secret about the > fact that this digital money is ideally suited to transfer on the Net. Visa > and Mastercard are both working on stored-value cards which will also > digitize official currencies. CyberCash has also announced plans for an > electronic token which will most likely represent an official currency. > Others will announce soon. I'd like to go on record as stating that all of these other systems pretty much suck. Mondex, for example, actually stores non-crypto messages of the type "Hi there I represent one hundred Belgian crowns" in its cards, so if you can hack the "front-door" security (possibly with physical hacking of the card) and convince a Mondex card that your PC is another Mondex card you can transfer infinite money to it. (Well, I suppose you wouldn't be able to transfer more than 2^64 units of currency or some such limit, but you get the idea.) Contrast this with DigiCash's scheme in which each cyberbuck is cryptographically unforgeable. Most of the other companies have similarly weak security. Many of them are not offering any new technology at all, but are simply offering to transport your credit card number for you, encrypted, over the net. Furthermore none of DigiCash's competitors, as far as I have been able to learn, offer any kind of anonymity the way DigiCash does. The closest they come is "confidentiality". Yeah-- right. I can get the same offer from the Ministry of Truth. Finally, be aware that e-cash can be put onto a smart card just as well as on a magentic disk. DigiCash is actually in the process of developing and/or marketing smart cards that hold such things as toll token for toll roads and civic credits for coffee houses in Europe. See their home page for more detailed (and probably more accurate) info. Source of facts behind these opinions: Perusing the web pages of the principals. DigiCash home page http://www.digicash.com/ FIRST VIRTUAL Holdings Incorporated http://www.fv.com/ Mondex Home Page http://www.mondex.com/mondex/home.htm CyberCash, Inc. Home Page http://www.cybercash.com/ CommerceNet Home http://www.commerce.net/ RSA Data Security, Inc.'s Home Page http://www.rsa.com/ Net1 Home Page http://www.netchex.com/ Electronic Commerce http://www.zurich.ibm.ch/Technology/Security/extern/ecommerce/ The NetCheque(SM) system http://nii-server.isi.edu:80/info/NetCheque/ NetMarket Homepage http://netmarket.com/nm/pages/home Downtown Anywhere - Front Street http://www.awa.com/ Internet Shopping Network http://www.internet.net/ Cash, Tokens, etc on NII http://www.cnri.reston.va.us:3000/XIWT/documents/dig_cash_doc/ToC.html NetBill Project Home Page http://www.ini.cmu.edu/netbill/ NetMarket Homepage http://netmarket.com/nm/pages/home NexusBucks http://www.c2.org/nexbucks/ Economics and the Internet http://gopher.econ.lsa.umich.edu/EconInternet.html Security First Network Bank, FSB http://www.sfnb.com/ Commerce on the Internet http://home.netscape.com/newsref/std/credit.html A History of Money http://www.ex.ac.uk/~RDavies/arian/llyfr.html Wenbo Mao's Presentation http://www.hpl.hp.co.uk/projects/vishnu/main.html Internet Casinos http://www.casino.org/" ADD_DATE="801367759 The E-cash Market http://www.c2.org/~mark/ecash/ecash.html > Stand-by though: governments and central banks will do everything in their > power to discourage and prevent this for the power to issue and coin money is > one of THE most cherished privileges of the Crown ! ...and it seems like the first step that they are taking is sanctioning inferior, less secure, privacy-decreasing technologies over DigiCash's superior alternative. And so it goes... Bryce signatures follow: + public key on keyservers /. island Life in a chaos sea or via finger 0x617c6db9 / bryce.wilcox(a)colorado.edu ---* -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Auto-signed with Bryce's Auto-PGP v1.0beta iQCVAwUBMC+gSPWZSllhfG25AQHe+gQAhiPQ8GN+cg4Q6lLe6c8UQovOVN301lop tAthnw7qbLDY/dKItCy9AzImDGn2WFTwx3i+nouWbDSWwGUw0Zlc6ajdRlCviX9a BihtvGJaaujxv13ERI6jjmmfkvbctDfqUrDvrgjQB/0kOhSxt5VTkA2tNdzGiEK9 4EA3f+0Cah0= =cJy2 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Are we forming the "social sector"? FYIntrospection...
by John Gilmore 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded-by: sbb(a)well.com (Stewart Brand) To: telecom_ir(a)rand.org cc: Frank Fukuyama <fukuyama(a)rand.org> Subject: Re: Cyberspace Security and the Internet Metaphor Date: Sun, 13 Aug 95 12:12:46 PDT From: David Ronfeldt <ronfeldt(a)rand.org> The discussion has assumed a familiar ring, as though the responsibilities for and answers to cyberspace security lie in the usual two realms or sectors: government or market, public or private. Is that the only range of choice? It pretty much has been for decades. But I still say there is a new realm/sector emerging out there now, which, for lack of a more acceptable term, amounts to what Drucker terms the social sector. "the post-capitalist polity needs a 'third sector,' in addition to the two generally recognized ones, the 'private sector' of business and the 'public sector' of government. It needs an autonomous social sector." (Drucker 1993) Many Internet-related NGOs (like EFF) and individuals (like Zimmerman) fall in this sector. They aren't government or market; they are nonstate, nonprofit actors. And besides just having a lot to say about cyberspace security issues, they have some roles to play--e.g., distribution of encryption techniques, watchdog and warning activities. For now, these roles are minor. But my guess is that they will get increasingly bigger, probably in ways we do not yet foresee. Whether their roles will soon be as significant as those of government and market actors is less important than whether they are, and increasingly will be, contributing something significant to the overall design mix. My presumption is that advanced societies develop mixes that distribute "the solution" across various realms and their actors. What I would like to know and discuss--and I ask you all--is what these nonstate, nonprofit actors are doing at present that amounts to their being part of the solution(s)?

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Re: Are we forming the "social sector"? FYIntrospection...
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> "the post-capitalist polity needs a 'third sector,' in addition > to the two generally recognized ones, the 'private sector' of > business and the 'public sector' of government. It needs an > autonomous social sector." (Drucker 1993) This is a quote from the following: "The Age of Social Transformation", Peter Drucker, _The Atlantic Monthly_ 11/94, pp 53-80. ... which I just read this weekend, coincedentally. Yes, it's statist. Still, it's a good read. I learned something from it, even if I found myself talking back a little. ;-). Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Shipwright Development Corporation, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA (617) 323-7923 "Reality is not optional." --Thomas Sowell >>>>Phree Phil: Email: zldf(a)clark.net http://www.netresponse.com/zldf <<<<<

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Re: My pseudo-anonymous dream list
by dochobbs＠wwa.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Gary wrote, I would add a few more suggestions of my own to your wishlist. 11) Seamless integration with existing mail programs, such as Eudora. what about...pine, pegasus, sendmail, airmail, news mail programs... I think this would be up to the individual user or for someone to develop the perfect pgp mail program. 12) Notification that your message has been received (I'm not sure how to do this and maintain anonymity) I don't know either if you chain your mail before it gets to the nym server. The idea of chaining is to keep the sender anonymous. Maybe if the nym server send mail to your reply block every time your alias and password are used to send mail. Though it would have to be something like "your alias has sent mail to the following xxx(a)xxx.xxx. 13) Ability to handle very large encrypted files (binaries). Why? I think this would either 1) cripple the server from the load 2) make it easier to track back to the sender. If you are comparing 1 meg files against 1000 byte files it would be much easier to filter out what you are not looking for. 3) give anon mailers the reputation of porn/warez/church of scientology document distibuters and not privacy mailers which defeats some of the things that are trying to get done. 14) Perhaps increasing security by breaking messages into several parts, routing them through different chains, and reassembling them just prior to transmission to recipient. Ouch. I think that would be hard to manage :) Can you imagine thousands of users sending tens of thousands of messages a day and having more than one remailer having to keep track of hundreds of thousands of 'chunks' of mail. That would start to resemble tcp/ip in complexity. Keep up the good work! The concepts are good, I just don't think the implementation would be very easy. You should sign up on the nym server mailing list that was posted here a few days ago if you are interested in pursuing these ideas. _____________________________________________________________ dochobbs(a)wwa.com M.D. Hobbs mhobbs(a)rad.rpslmc.edu http://miso.wwa.com/~dochobbs finger for my pgp key I am human and nothing human do I count alien.

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Re: Are we forming the "social sector"? FYIntrospection...
by Steven Champeon - Imonics Development 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

| From owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com Mon Aug 14 15:48:43 1995 | Subject: Are we forming the "social sector"? FYIntrospection... | Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com | | [ ... ] | | "the post-capitalist polity needs a 'third sector,' in addition | to the two generally recognized ones, the 'private sector' of | business and the 'public sector' of government. It needs an | autonomous social sector." (Drucker 1993) Not to start a holy war (no pun intended) but isn't this the role that according to Locke, et al., was supposed to be filled by Religion? A moral/social force standing beside government and economics? If Dr. Johnson had been less immersed in the idea of Truth, I believe he would have agreed. He wrote for money, hobnobbed with royalty for status, and was driven by a need to prove himself worthy in the eyes of his Maker. I can't stand the perspectives that come out of this "we're so objective we ignore anything that reeks of irrationality" stance. By restricting themselves to the projection of history that results, they can't see the ways in which the things they deny have been the major players in the situation they claim to understand. "Post-capitalist polity"? What the hell is this guy smoking? I say this not to advance the role of religious fundamentalism, but as a reminder of the past and an earnest attempt to get people to recognize that like it or not, religion (however you may conceive it) is already there. You could argue that people go into government for power and business for money, and whatever is left over constitutes their religious frame. Charles Winquist, a professor of the philosophy of religion at Syracuse, calls religion that which defines what is "real and important" for a person, a culture, or a nation. I would argue that once you abstract out the money and power aspects of this, you are left with exactly what this guy Drucker is trying to say we need. And we already have it. I like to write good code and do intelligent Web site design. And I don't do it for Jesus, or Buddha, or Rev. Moon. I do it because it is what gives my life a sense of reality, and because it is what I have determined to be important right now. I also pay attention to issues such as are discussed here (excepting the conspiracy crap) because I can see that it will be important to me and others. Just my $.02, Steve

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Get 1/3 net of 900-CAN-MY0B
by J. Kent Hastings 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-- [ From: J. Kent Hastings * EMC.Ver #2.5.02 ] -- Buy ads for The Agorist Institute's new privacy information audiotext distribution line (aka 900-number), and get 1/3 of the income above strictly defined costs for TeleConnect and MCI. After computing the service bureau and MCI take, it looks like we'll have to charge 1.95 (or 1.99 more likely) per minute if more than half of the money is to be available for a three way split. Right now I'm reading a script on a low audio volume tape player at 99 cents per minute. The three ways are 1/3 to Lon Weber, freedom4(a)aol.com, the owner of the 900#, 1/3 to J. Kent Hastings, zeus(a)pinsight.com, Assistant Director of The Agorist Institute, the "sponsor" of the line, and 1/3 to an advertiser. If more than one advertiser gets involved, we can assign and pay for calls in defined territories. If you buy ads in Colorado, you'd get 1/3 of the net from Colorado calls. Or if just a few participate with nationwide print, radio, or video infomercials, we can assign extension numbers, which are automatically tallied by TeleConnect, to identify who is to be paid. Of course, one single investor willing to finance a complete ad campaign could use these techniques to select the most profitable approaches. We have the line, 1-900-CAN-MY0B, and it is already approved. The "MIND YOUR 0WN BUSINESS" audiotext program. 1 - 9 0 0 - C A N - M Y 0 B (1-900-226-6902) Note the zero digit, not the letter "O." "The Feds say you can't have privacy, but we say you CAN 'Mind Your 0wn Business!'" Help get it going, so we can make a dollar and provide useful privacy news and techniques to the public. A 900# doesn't have the printing and postage costs of a newsletter, and the listener doesn't need to use a credit card or write a check for a subscription. I'm also willing to give 1/2 of my 1/3 (=1/6) for monthly professional audio production. Send e-mail to me at zeus(a)pinsight.com for more information. Kent -- J. Kent Hastings, Assistant Director of The Agorist Institute zeus(a)pinsight.com -- http://www.pinsight.com/~zeus/agorist/

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Purple Boxes vs. Native Signal Processing
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:12 AM 8/16/95, Lucky Green wrote: >I agree. You can easily do encryption and compression on the same chip. >There is no need for a separate DES/RSA chip. I only included some possible >DES chip manufactors, because the original poster asked for them. The trend is away from having two chips when one will suffice. Thus, the Macintosh 840av and 660av had a Motorola 68040 _and_ a Motorola 56000 DSP chip for speech processing and recognition, sound processing, etc....they were dropped and replaced by the PowerPC machines, which dispensed with the separate DSP chips. (The DSPs were never fully supported by software, especially from third party vendors....) And Intel is pushing "native signal processing," wherein DSP functions are pushed back into the CPU. If the CPU is fast enough, as the fast Pentiums are, this can work. This may be partly to sell more and faster Pentiums and partly because Intel has no effective DSP products at this time. (Intel has generally missed out on the DSP market, despite arguably having invented the first DSP chip. In 1977 I worked on the Intel 2920 signal processor, the first general purpose chip to do signal processing. Invented by Ted Hoff, the same guy who invented the microprocessor, it was abandoned a few years later. Then came the success of TI's TMS320 (or similar) DSP chips, the Motorola 56000 series, and Intel was out of the game.) Pushing DSP functions into the CPU can be taken too far. Apple, for example, had/has a "Geo Modem," or something like this, which does modem funtions in the CPU of some machines. Last I heard it was stuck at being too slow, with no software updates, and effectively is being abandoned. Modems have gotten so cheap that using the CPU makes little sense if it also complicates software. As in everything, the choice in partitioning is crucial. Of relevance to this list, I see no hope whatsoever that people will buy gizmos to do encryption if a software-only ("native signal processing") solution is within a factor of several in performance. After all, people complain that RSADSI wants "exorbitant" prices ($125) for public key ecryption and demand that "free" products are needed, so I can't see them spending $300 or even $100 for a hardware solution that does encryption a bit faster. If the Pentium + Soundblaster can do VoicePGP or PGPFone or Nautilus, then what's the incentive to buy additional hardware? Last I heard about CELP, it could handle "Pretty Good Voice" on a mere 66 MHz 486, and that's about 2-4x slower than what people are routinely buying today. (The situation may be slightly different for a fully-productized and consumerized "bump in the wire" secure phones, where the finished product will be sold to a different sort of customer than those clamoring for cheap crypto.) In conclusion, I'd always look to a software solution first. Anything that requires chips is automatically harder to build and to sell. Most importantly, a solution which runs on standard hardware available around the world will be trivially exportable (technologically) and will spread within days of availability, whereas a hardware-dependent solution will likely remain obscure and hard to export. Sofware solutions rule! --Tim May ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net (Got net?) | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-728-0152 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Corralitos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Request for Cypherpunks to CU-SeeMeize mbone video
by Thomas Grant Edwards 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A while back someone mentioned that they would be videocasting a Cypherpunks meeting over the MBONE. While the MBONE is great for many of us, CU-SeeMe would provide a much larger audience. Check out http://www.umich.edu/~dschluss/nv-cusm.html for information on how to forward MBONE video to a CU-SeeMe reflector. -Thomas

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